Edge of Black

by J. T. Ellison

  Sam let her hair down; the pins holding her bun were starting to give her a headache. She shook it out and it spilled over her shoulders. That was better.

  “Fletcher, lay off it. I get that you’re pissed. But I don’t control Xander. I trust him. If he thinks this is the right thing to do, then it probably is. Why don’t you let me help you while we’re waiting?”

  “Help me? You’re in custody.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Jeez, would you two give it a rest? None of us can get our homework done when mommy and daddy are fighting.”

  They both turned to see Inez, her glasses pushed up high on her nose, holding her hand up in a universal stop sign.

  “Sorry,” Fletcher mumbled.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, Inez. This must be terribly disruptive to your workday.”

  Inez scowled at Sam. “Don’t try to suck up. You deserve to be behind bars, not sitting here. I don’t approve of your methods.”

  Fletcher smiled at his assistant, then turned to Sam. “What she said.”

  “Okay, okay. Fine. You’ve got to give me something to do, though. I’m going stir-crazy.”

  “Why don’t you type up your autopsy report?”

  “I already did that.”

  “Then here. Take my laptop and surf the Net. Facebook. Twitter. Write a blog. Shop for some shoes. I don’t care. Just leave me alone so I can get some work done.”

  He shoved the laptop across the desk to her, and she demurely said, “Thanks.”

  She resisted cheering; it wouldn’t be seemly.

  Inez looked at Fletcher. “Are you sure you should let her do that?”

  Fletcher shrugged. “If it shuts her up, I’m all for it.”

  * * *

  Sam tapped away at the keyboard. As it happened, she did have a Facebook account, purely for business. She’d joined about a year earlier, ostensibly to get in touch with some friends from her high school, Father Ryan, but in reality to keep an eye on one of her employees whom she suspected was stealing illegal drugs from the evidence lockers at Forensic Medical. One of her former death investigators, a girl named Keri McGee, had set up the account for her and “friended,” as she called it, several of the staffers. Sam wasn’t fond of the site, it felt too much like spying on people to go to their pages and look at their pictures and hear the intimate details of their lives, but the sting worked. The staffer was caught, summarily dismissed, and Sam had biometric locks installed on the door to the evidence room so it wouldn’t happen again.

  She hadn’t been back on the site, had meant to close her account, but was now grateful for the oversight. She could do a little investigating of her own without anyone being the wiser.

  She typed a name into the search box, careful to get the spelling correct. Loa Ledbetter.

  Boom. Up popped the woman’s page.

  Sam looked at the profile picture and couldn’t stop the lump from forming in her throat. Ledbetter was a beautiful woman, very natural, with a self-assured smile. She was standing in the midst of a group of Maasi tribesmen, staring right into the camera. Sam read her information; she was a Harvard girl, with a B.Sc. in cultural anthropology, an M.A. in sociology and a Ph.D. in sociocultural and medical anthropology. She owned a market research firm that specialized in ethnographic research. In other words, a very intelligent woman who’d made a good life for herself studying other people’s behavior for a living.

  What would she have made of the attack?

  Sam clicked through a few of the pictures; not being a friend of the deceased, she was limited as to what she could see. But when she went back to the front page, the “Wall,” as it was called, there was a new status update. From Loa Ledbetter herself. An update from the grave. Sam shook off the chill at the coincidence.

  Dear all: I am so sad to have to share that my mother was a victim of the heinous attacks in D.C. yesterday. We are devastated, and appreciate your prayers during this difficult time. When arrangements have been made we will update this page. For now, I will leave you with my mother’s favorite quote: “We must dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”—May Sarton

  Even one death is too many.

  Sam took a deep breath to steady herself. This was how it was meant to be. Children were supposed to mourn their parents, not the other way around.

  She looked at Ledbetter’s “friends” page and saw there was one person labeled as family. A daughter, also named Loa. She clicked on the profile, but unlike her mother, Loa the younger’s site was closed off to even the most cursory of investigation.

  Sam didn’t waste any time. She sent the girl a friend request and a note that read, Please accept my deepest condolences. I am one of the medical examiners on your mother’s case. I would like to talk to you if you have a moment. She left her cell number and email address.

  Marc Conlon’s page was very different from Loa’s. It was unrestricted, open for all to see. His friends had been actively posting, there were hundreds of wall entries sending the boy and his family prayers and good wishes, recounting good times had, and numerous tear-jerking replies. Sam was amazed, as she always was, at the openness with which the younger generation lived their lives. Everything they did or said was on display, with no thought to the consequences. The concept of privacy was lost on them.

  Sam scrolled through the post until she found his latest entry. What she saw shocked her.

  The night before the attack, at one in the morning, he had posted: Operation TEOTWAWKI entering final stage. Will report back on its success or failure. Wish me luck.

  “Fletcher?”

  He looked up from his desktop. “Yeah? What is it?”

  “How much do you know about Marc Conlon?”

  “Not my part of the investigation. Why?”

  “Look at this.” She spun the laptop around so the screen was facing him. “What does TEOTWAWKI stand for?”

  He read the status update. He paled, then turned to Inez. “Get me Bianco, right now.”

  She didn’t hesitate, shot up from her chair and marched off in search of their boss.

  “Fletch, what? What is it?”

  “It’s an acronym for the end of the world as we know it.”

  Chapter 19

  Washington, D.C.

  Detective Darren Fletcher

  Fletcher cursed himself for letting Sam anywhere near his laptop. Of course she’d be digging into the lives of the dead, that was her job. He had enough respect for her instincts not to throttle her on the spot, though now he really was going to catch hell.

  Could a nineteen-year-old boy manage to stage a biological attack of this scale on the Metro? Not without help, which meant there were more of them out there.

  He couldn’t help himself, the REM song jumped into his head.

  If the end of the world as we know it had Lenny Bruce involved, surely a suburban student could be, too.

  The edges of a plan started to form in the back of his mind. It was risky, but what else could he do? He was being hamstrung here, and that wasn’t acceptable. He couldn’t just quit the JTTF, either; he was invested enough in the outcome of the Leighton case to want to see what the truth was, and now his fingerprints were all over it, literally and figuratively, so walking away wasn’t an option.

  But someone else might be able to walk away.

  “Listen, Sam. When Bianco gets here, let me talk. I’d rather neither of us go to jail today, all right?”

  Sam crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. It wasn’t like her to gloat, so she must still be pissed at him. Great. How could she blame him? He was just doing his job. Covering his own ass. He was a bit miffed at her, as well.

  Inez came back, looking harried.

  “Bianco wants you to pass the
information to Cusack. She said to stay on Leighton.”

  Of course she does.

  Sam finally spoke. “Well, that’s not fair. You found the info, you should be able to investigate it.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “Technically, you found the info. But Bianco is all-powerful here. Inez, you didn’t hear that.”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  Crap. He didn’t want to do it like this, but it was unavoidable.

  “Would you do me a favor, Inez? I’m starving. Sam must be, too. Think I could bribe you to grab us a couple of pastrami and Swiss sandwiches from the Au Bon Pain down the street?”

  Inez was no dummy, but she stood automatically and held out her hand for money. He handed her thirty bucks and said, “Get one for yourself, too.”

  “Thanks, Fletch.”

  She disappeared down the corridor, and he turned to Sam. He spoke low so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Here’s the deal. What you did was wrong. Nothing matters right now more than capturing the person who orchestrated the attack. Not our friendship, or your relationship. Can we agree on that?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Agreed.”

  “I trust you, Sam. I know that you’d never purposefully do something to hurt me, personally or professionally. We are friends, even though you feel we might not be close. You could have told Bianco that you’d been calling me all night and I didn’t answer, but you didn’t.”

  Sam nodded. “I didn’t see the point.”

  “I appreciate that. Because that would have made things even worse. I’m being railroaded here. The case on Leighton isn’t what it seems. There are some pretty intense accusations being laid on him, and if this investigation isn’t handled just right, it’s going to be me that goes down. You with me?”

  “Fletch, what is it? What do they have on the congressman?”

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, he slid the file to her. She opened it and, after a few seconds, looked appropriately shocked. She read through the reports swiftly, then closed it and pushed the file back to him.

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Yes. Something in my gut tells me we aren’t being given all the pieces of the puzzle. So I want your help. I really do. But I’m stuck here, dealing with this portion of the investigation. But you...you aren’t. You have the freedom to do what you want.”

  She gave him a wary glance. “I thought I was in protective custody.”

  “You are. But sometimes the greater good must be served. The door is over there.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She was quick, he’d give her that.

  “Get the hell out of here, go dig up everything you can on Conlon and Ledbetter, find your fool of a boyfriend, and get back to me as fast as you can. Be careful, though. Don’t get picked up. Lay low. If something bad happens, and you can’t get back here, go to Captain Armstrong. He likes you, he’ll take care of you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Try to figure out what the hell is going on here with Leighton. Now go, Sam. Before I change my mind.”

  She was up and out of the chair before his lips closed. She walked with purpose away from his desk, neither looking right nor left, just focused on the door. Fletcher glanced around the bullpen, saw Bianco walking toward the conference room, her view of the door to the hall obscured. Providence.

  Sam was gone, out the door, and when no alarm bells went off, Fletcher knew he’d just made the right decision. He could cover for at least an hour before Bianco figured things out, and that might just give Sam enough time to get some of the answers he needed to set his mind at ease.

  He sent a note to Armstrong, a heads-up, just in case. And then he pulled the file to him and looked at the DNA again. Such a coincidence, the congressman managing to get himself dead just as the FBI found out he was a serial killer.

  Something wasn’t right here. And he was going to figure out what that was, no matter what it cost him.

  Chapter 20

  Washington, D.C.

  Dr. Samantha Owens

  Sam was a city block away from the JTTF before she let herself take a full breath. She’d been careful to go in the opposite direction from the Au Bon Pain so she wouldn’t stumble into Inez. Every step she took she expected an arm to land on her shoulder, grabbing and pulling her back to the JTTF offices, where she’d be stuck in a cell this time—they didn’t take kindly to suspects, or witnesses, or whatever role she was supposed to be playing for them, walking out of their custody unmolested.

  But she didn’t perceive any immediate threats to her freedom, so she kept walking.

  D.C. had recovered from the attack the day before. People streamed through the streets; the Metro was still closed, so they were forced to drive and taxi and walk to their destinations. There was still a large law enforcement presence, but the overwhelming mood was one of cautious optimism. They’d been attacked, and only three had died. It wasn’t cause for celebration, but it was a testament to the American way—you might be able to punch us, but you rarely knock us down, and never knock us out.

  Summer in D.C. was a kaleidoscope of colors: flowers and trees thick with blooms, dresses in bold pinks and purples and yellows and greens, men in lightweight linen suits, even some seersucker. Nothing screamed hot weather to Sam like seersucker. She tucked herself behind a particularly portly man who not only wore a lightweight suit, but sported a hat and cane besides, and headed directly four blocks west to K Street, where she found Ledbetter’s office building with no difficulty.

  She ducked inside the revolving doors, waiting a minute by the wall to see if anyone was following her. She felt rather ridiculous; she wasn’t used to not being able to use the power of her office to gain information. Sneaking around like this was insane. When she was growing up, and she’d ask her mother for advice about something she thought was questionable, her mom always told her, “Well, Sam, if you have to ask, then it’s probably the wrong thing to do.” That’s how she felt right now. Sneaking around like she had something to hide, when all she was doing was trying to help.

  She tried to make sense of everything that was happening while she caught her breath.

  A terrorist attack with an unknown substance. Xander running off to track down the owners of a survivalist website. Fletcher being asked to investigate the congressman as a serial killer. A teenage boy who talked publicly of an apocalyptic event. She couldn’t see what an anthropologist market researcher had to do with any of that.

  But that’s why she was here, to try and pull the pieces together for Fletcher. To help him out from under the thumb of this Bianco character. Sam didn’t know if the woman was trustworthy, or out to cover her own ass. Whether the sweetness was an act belying a bitchy cream center, or her real disposition. She leaned toward the former, but only time would tell.

  She glanced at the board that listed which office was where, and saw Ledbetter was on the sixth floor. Sam picked another office on the sixth, that of an OB/GYN, and went to the front desk, got in the line to move through the building’s security. She watched the three people in front of her as they signed in: the security guard didn’t ask any of them for ID. When Sam’s turn came, she altered her name, wrote Sarah Jackson on the sheet, and the doctor’s name. The guard didn’t blink an eye, just issued her a pass and motioned her through the turnstile.

  Obviously no one at the JTTF thought Loa Ledbetter’s death was anything but a horrible accident, or they had already checked her out and didn’t find anything of consequence; otherwise, they might have had a tighter lock on the security in her building. That was lucky.

  The elevator was inlaid marble and dark walnut, very elegant, and Sam got the impression that perhaps Ledbetter had been doing all right in the business department.

  The OB/GYN offices were the first
thing she saw when the doors of the elevator opened. Ledbetter’s suite was 640, around the corner, away from the main thoroughfare, without the constant parade of patients in and out. Smart. Sam didn’t hesitate, went to the double glass doors and entered the offices of Ledbetter Market Strategies.

  The doors closed behind her with a whispered rush, and Sam realized her initial assessment about Ledbetter’s level of success was correct. The offices were gorgeous. The walls on either side housed floor-to-ceiling mahogany and glass shelves that held all sorts of artifacts, masks and jars and shields and art in a variety of textures and colors. It was an impressive display. Sam was reminded of a childhood trip to see the Egyptian mummies, and all the finery that accompanied their kings and queens to the graves. She’d been in awe of the fact that it was all so very old, and that so many ghosts still floated around the scene. She felt that here as well, the presence of the people to whom the materials had belonged. Watching over their treasures.

  “May I help you?”

  A man in his mid-thirties with dirty blond hair and a dimple in his chin sat at the reception desk. She hadn’t even noticed him when she walked in.

  “Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Samantha Owens. I’m a medical examiner, and I am working on Dr. Ledbetter’s case. I am so sorry for your loss.”

  His face crumpled. “You’re kind to say that. We aren’t quite sure what to do now. Dr. Ledbetter has two partners, but they’re both out of the country at the moment, unreachable, so we’re all just gathered here trying to move forward and get through the day. Her loss is inestimable. I’m George Capra, her assistant. She was like a mother to me, I’ve worked with her for years. Since she taught me in graduate school, actually.”

  Good. She’d walked right into the firm’s institutional knowledge. That was going to make things easier.

  “I know how hard it is to lose the ones you love.” Oh boy, do I know.

  “Yes. It’s terrible. What can I help you with, Dr. Owens?”